The Serdang Hospital’s Cardiology Centre, which will begin operation on December 12, will reduce waiting time for coronary angiograms from 18 to nine months for stable elective cases.
Caretaker Health Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin said the opening of the dedicated heart centre would also increase the number of heart procedures from 35,000 to 60,000 a year.
“With this centre, we now also have the biggest invasive cardiac facility in Southeast Asia,” he said, adding that the centre would boast the latest sophisticated equipment.
“Among them is an Invasive Cardiac Laboratory (ICL) at the emergency department, the first of its kind in Malaysia and comparable to other developed countries.
“This ICL allows acute heart attack cases to receive the immediate and best treatment, which is Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI).
“This PCI can increase patient’s survival rate due to heart attack by 99 per cent.
“Also available here is a hybrid operating theatre, the first of its kind for facilities under the Health Ministry.
“The hybrid operating theatre, equipped with an angioplasty machine, allows complex cases such as Transfemoral Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI), Thoracic Endovascular Repair of Aorta (TEVAR) and Endovascular Repair of Aortic Aneurysm (EVAR) to be performed there.
“If there are complications during the angioplasty procedure, the patient can be operated on in the same operating room.
“This would benefit between 200 and 250 cardiac patients yearly,” he said.
Khairy added that the centre would also house a unit of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) 3.0 Tesla, the first at the ministry’s facility.
“The MRI machine, to be used specifically for heart diagnostic imaging, can produce images quickly and further reduce procedure time from 45 to 20 minutes.
“The machine is also equipped with 64 imaging channels that can provide images four times clearer than normal MRI,” he said.
Khairy said the establishment of the centre was approved under Rolling Plan 4 of Year 2015 under the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP) with a total cost of RM546 million, of which RM311 million was the construction cost and RM235 million for the procurement of equipment.
The centre consists of an eight-storey cardiology block with 262 beds and a nine-storey parking block with 536 parking bays.
Khairy said Serdang Hospital was a heart treatment referral centre for the central region and a referral centre for complex heart cases nationwide.
“Serdang Hospital’s heart service is the busiest service with the highest workload with over 40,000 outpatients and over 12,000 invasive treatments yearly, including angiograms and coronary angioplasty.”
